Georgia Tech, Clemson basketball locked into 2 yearly matchups in new ACC schedule

In case you missed it on Wednesday, the ACC announced a new 18-game schedule moving forward, whittling down from the previous 20-game slate. That means that playing some teams twice just won't happen as much and Clemson basketball will hope to have a protected rivalry or two.

Every team in the conference has one opponent locked into home-and-homes every year moving forward and the choice for the Tigers was... interesting.

According to Matt Norlander, Clemson will have a protected yearly home-and-home matchup with Georgia Tech, the team that ruined its chances to share an ACC title this past season.

According to the new schedule, each ACC team will play 14 different single opponents and the remaining four games will be home-and-homes. There will only be two teams every year that ACC teams will play twice. And Clemson now knows that one of those teams will be Georgia Tech. Not a bad draw if you're looking for a favorable matchup.

It could be worse. You could be SMU and have to face a no-longer-sleeping giant like Louisville twice every single year.

This new schedule is interesting because the way it's set up means that every team will play all but one ACC team every season. With 18 teams in the conference, each team will have 14 single opponents, two double opponents, and one team that just doesn't make the schedule.

I think the league could have done a better job and just made it so there's only one double opponent every year so that way every team will play at least one time. Either way, it's an interesting schedule and Clemson is locked in with Georgia Tech for the foreseeable future.